24 September 2008

Mr S Hardwicke Carruthers

Via email ([FOI #2808 email])

Our ref: CS/08/0055/HJP

(Please quote our reference when contacting us)

If telephoning contact Hilary Pook on 020 7217 4734

or if using email send to: [email address]

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers

Request for information

In your email of 2 September, you asked “how many times over each of the last three years each of the Local Commissioners has been provided with information from the Information Commissioner as enabled by the FOI Act. I would further like to know how many of these information `presents' resulted in an investigation…”

I assume by this you are asking how many times the Information Commissioner has referred complaints made to his office to the LGO, because the LGO would be a more appropriate body to investigate the matters complained of. If this is what you mean, the answer is none.

You then asked “how many times a council took more than 20 days to respond to an Ombudsman's request for information as part of an investigation and broke the Freedom of Information Act”, and you asked for the councils that did so to be named. Investigations by the Ombudsmen are not governed by the FOI Act, but by the Local Government Act 1974, as amended. There is therefore no legal requirement for councils to respond to the Ombudsman within 20 days.

Then you asked how many other breaches of the Freedom of Information Act were recorded by the Ombudsmen against councils. You asked in particular how many times the LGO had informed the ICO that section 77 of the FOI Act had been breached. The Local Government Ombudsmen do not determine breaches of the FOI Act - this is the job of the Information Commissioner. So, the answer is again, none. The Ombudsmen may very occasionally consider the failure to disclose information as part of a wider complaint, but no records are kept of the instances of this. Normally, if the Ombudsmen receive complaints about councils' failure to disclose information, they would simply refer the complainant to the Information Commissioner's office. We have no records of any complaints made to the Ombudsmen being directly referred to the ICO.

You also asked how many failures of councils to respond properly to the LGO have led to practice recommendations by the Information Commissioner. As explained above, the FOI Act has no bearing on how the Ombudsmen's investigations are conducted - so the answer is again none. The Ombudsmen have the powers the High Court to obtain information for their investigations.

Finally, you requested copies of correspondence between the Information Commissioner and any of the Local Commissioners or the Commission for Local Administration as a whole seeking a common understanding if a council breaking the law under FOI is an act of maladministration and injustice, and any draft memoranda of understanding or other documents. I can confirm that there have been no such exchanges.

That concludes my response and I hope you find the information useful. If you feel I have not dealt properly with your request, you have the right to appeal and, should you wish to do so, I can supply a copy our internal complaints procedure. You also have the right to apply to the Information Commissioner to determine whether your request has been properly dealt with. You should note however that the Commissioner will not consider any complaint where you have not first exhausted our internal complaints process or where there has been undue delay in contacting him. You will be able to obtain further details of the Information Commissioner's role from the website on www.ico.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely

Hilary Pook (Ms)

Communications and Records Manager

LGO 01 (03/08)